Autumn Foraging

I suspect you are like me and hugely jealous of Julie’s amazing farmers market which she visits to collect her produce! We do have some great farm shops where you can buy locally grown food, but it is autumn here and the choice is not so great as during the summer months.

That had me thinking what to include in my collage. We do have great seafood in the area, but again autumn is not the best time to gather/catch seafood and we are having some horrible wet & windy weather at the moment reducing the time the fisherman can spend at sea.

Foraging for succulent herbs is also out, but we do have a bountiful supply of autumn berries, fruits & seeds found in the hedgerows - a plan was starting to hatch!!

I know a few good spots to collect my wish list of berries, fruits & seeds, unfortunately the season had ended on a lot of what I had hoped to collect and my favourite crab apple tree had already been raided, but I found enough to make my autumn foraging collage.

In My Autumn Foraging Collage

Sloe Berries – A very sour fruit, great for jams and of course sloe gin!

Blackberries - The most foraged berry in the UK, great for jams, wine & puddings

Watercress – Wonderful peppery salad plant, eaten as is or made into soups

Rosehips - Great in syrups & chutneys

Hawthorn Berries - Great in syrups & chutneys

Sea Buckthorn - Great in syrups & jams

Fennel Seeds & Seed Heads – Fish, Chicken, Pork – anything!

Elderflower Berries - - Great in syrups & especially good for wine

Gorse Flowers – Ice cream, jellies & cake

Wild Hop – Good British Ale

I found this project hugely infectious and I even caught myself arranging vegetables that I was about to roast!!!